Catawba Business Students and Advisor Attend State Leadership Conference

The North Carolina state chapter of Phi Beta Lambda (PBL) held the 61st annual State Leadership Conference in Charlotte April 9-11. Officers and members from Catawba College's chapter of PBL attended the conference and competed in many of the statewide business competitions. Catawba chapter advisor, Dr. Pamela Thompson, attended with Catawba PBL chapter president Lincoln Anderson of Orlando, Fla., and members Janin Kassner of Giesen, Germany, Toomas Goutt of St. Witz, France, and Martha Brucker of Kings Mt.

Catawba's PBL chapter received an award for having the second largest chapter in the state. The three-year-old chapter also brought home many honors from the statewide competitive events including:

International Business: 1st place, Toomas Goutt

Professional Accounting: 2nd place, Lincoln Anderson

Marketing Concepts: 8th place, Martha Brucker

Cost Accounting: 1st place, Janin Kassner

Students receiving 1st and 2nd place in events automatically qualify for the national competitions to be held at PBL Nationals in Chicago, Ill., in June of this year.

Thompson stated, "I am incredibly proud of our chapter and of these competitive event winners! Lincoln, Martha, Toomas and Janin worked really hard to prepare for the contests and to take the challenging tests that are required by PBL. The Catawba College chapter competed along with hundreds of students from many colleges and universities from across the state and this is quite an honor for our team."

FBLA-PBL is the largest business career student organization in the world with over 240,000 high school, college and professional division members. FBLA-PBL is recognized by the Association for Career and Technical Education, International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education, National Association of Parliamentarians, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Business Education Association, and the U.S. Department of Education.

FBLA-PBL's National Awards Program recognizes and rewards excellence in a broad range of business and career-related areas. Through state-based competition at the spring State Leadership Conferences, students compete in events testing their business knowledge and skills. Top state winners then are eligible to compete for honors at the National Leadership Conference each summer.